


SPOOKS

by lovemerrright



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Bad Parenting, Found Family, Gen, Major Character Injury, Single Parents, character development tho!, hongjoong is done with yunho, jongho is a bit of a bitch, spirit guide au, yunho is done with everyone
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:00:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23801974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovemerrright/pseuds/lovemerrright
Summary: When university student Choi Jongho has a near-death experience and begins to hear voices, he assumes that it’s simply a strange manifestation of trauma. The voices would beg to differ.
Kudos: 7





	SPOOKS

Everyone dies eventually. It’s one of the few things in life that will always remain a certainty, no matter how much you strive to prevent it.

I know that at some point i will die - there’s no point trying to fight it, but, i mean…. I can’t say i ever expected that my cause of death would be a rotten floorboard. Not to brag or anything, but i really expected something more glamorous. Maybe a crystalline chandelier falling on me, a la phantom of the opera, or a dramatic, romantic sacrifice like in the titanic. Honestly, pretty much anything would have been better than this.

Yet here i am, hurtling towards the cold, hard floor below me. No showstopping chandeliers, no oh-so-sexy sacrifices, just me - seconds away from spending a whole lot of quality time with a sensual slab of grey concrete.

*record scratch* - you’re probably wondering how i got here, right?

Nah. Just Kidding. This isn’t some kind of dark comedy netflix show. This won’t and can’t be fixed by throwing in a laugh track and a grey filter. This is me, Choi Jongho, and a death i am powerless to stop.

Or so i thought.

I’ve hit the ground with a thud, and there’s now a almost burning pain in my lower back, plus i’m pretty sure my hip is broken. I know I’ve got seconds -at most- until the darkness envelops me. I scream as thought my life depends on it - because it does, and i lay there, fully prepared to meet my maker. And i wait

And i wait.

And i wait.

And i wait.

I feel a numbness enveloping my body - not a painful numbness, or even one of discomfort, but a warm, inviting sensation. It feels good - great even. I feel like after nearly two decades, i am home. My eyes flutter shut, and i feel as though my purpose has been fulfilled.

And then i wake up.

I’m in a hospital.. I think,, and there’s a fuckton of wires connected to me. I’m suddenly aware of the beep of a monitor next to me, and a humming light above me, and something that feels like a cast wrapped around my lower body. The scent of intense sanitation assault my senses, and i am overwhelmed. Once again i am enveloped by darkness, but this time around it’s involuntary.

i once again wake up a few days later, and this time manage to stay awake longer than four minutes. A doctor explains to me that i fell through the second floor of my university onto the first - which i already knew - and that i sustained a absolutely smashed hip and a prettt sexy (read: awful) head injury - which i didn’t know. After a lengthy series of tests and a bit of persuading with the doctor, i’m given what i assume must be the pretty standard “You are truly lucky to be alive, someone must be looking out for you!” speech, I’m allowed to leave the hospital, albeit in a wheel chair, with a dumb-ass bandage around my head.

On my way back from the hospital was the first time i heard the voice.

I’m sitting in the passenger seat of my mom’s car. She’s giving a lecture that sits somewhere between beration for being so “careless”, and relief that i’m still alive. I‘m more focused on the radio. That twice song is playing, the one about cheering. I can’t say i particularly like twice, nor am i in a particularly cheery mood, but this is still a huge improvement on listening to my mum somehow blame a rotting floorboard on my tendency to go to football games rather than lectures. At this point i don’t even know what she’s saying, it’s just me and dahyun. i lean back in the chair and close my eyes.

“turn it up!”

i ignore her.

“i said turn it up!”

i’m still ignoring her.

“PLEASE turn it up, i’m begging you.”

“NO.” i burst out. i’m not sure why i exploded, but it’s been a long ass week and i think you can allow me this one time.

“I didn’t say anything?” my mom replies, sounding more puzzled than she has any right to be.”

“Yes you did?” i respond. “You asked me to turn the music up.”

She looks at me for a second, like she’s internally debating on if she should turn around and take me back to the hospital.

“… No the fuck i didn’t” she retorts, clearly convinced that i’m having a brain bleed as we speak.

Suddenly the car grows cold. Really, Really fucking cold. Icy, even. Mom for some reason doesn’t seem particularly bothered, but i almost start shivering. I grow colder by the second, as if there’s some kind of ice goblin trying to use my asshole as a recreational rock climbing installation.

The cold seems to travel up torso and “rest” as it were on my shoulder, like the ice goblin is now resting on me like a frat bro about to ask to borrow my juul.

“Your mother may not have wanted the music turned up.” a voice whispers into my ear.

“But i did.”


End file.
